….... As he said in an interview in Dubai to representatives of the UAE, he foresees a future where there will be very few jobs that a "robot couldn't do better."

What might save us all, then, is a new kind of corporate ethos and model - indeed, which also embraces and rewards a standard in production and operation which embraces - not detracts - from the sustaining recognition of the VALUE OF the presence of humanity, and the edifices and devices which support and encourage our furthered - not replaced - existence.

It is a new kind of "capital growth": one which challenges the creative force to INCLUDE, instead of REPLACE humankind in the face of massive profit. As Dofasco says, "our product is steel: our strength is people." Those words, as a steel-city girl, still ring in my ears, like the sight of my father, my uncles, and those "firm lunch box men" file out of the plants whose profits hinged upon the sweat of those men.

It is the kind of investing that ensures that new ventures also INVOLVE and SUSTAIN a human workforce, and ensures that automation AUGMENTS the human capacity in any scenario, without replacing it. This is our gift to each other, as human beings, and - in terms of ethics - as I once discussed with a community college colleague - insists upon, in terms of its ability to keep pace with science and technology.

What we "are capable of doing", and what we "actually do" are tempered - albeit with a deep sensibility that comes from these ethics , and, as Wordsworth says, an ability to "see into the life of things" - with our deep, renewed, and quieted and somewhat humbled respect for OURSELVES, and human life itself, beyond excessive wealth without conscience, poverty, and disease.

This simply does not preclude the capitalist mode; indeed, it challenges it anew.

However, it sets clear priorities, too: challenge, change and OPPORTUNITY.

Including human beings in the model is part of that "challenge of tomorrow": there is no reason - nor any excuse, therefore - for a world where the disabled are not "enabled", by means of the same technology that brought us the brilliant mind of Stephen Hawking in a failing human shell, for as long as natural form, and supportive technology, was able to grant to him a comfortable, challenging, capable, and deeply meaningful, existence. This is quite a shift from the current attitude about how technology is pushing us, in the workplace - and how we are letting it do so.....right out of the picture.

Although I balk at the idea that humanity must become a "sustained and supersocialist" model, if we begin to recognize that we ARE worth saving, perhaps in discussing it, in earnest terms, and with a heretofore unchastised knowledge of life and death, as we battle E-bola, Aids, hunger, poverty, and pollution, it is a very different species that sets out, refreshed and ready to "do business differently.
I have great hope that with this shared earnestness, and our renewed respect for each other, and our selves, we will begin to do just that - starting with our Greatest Minds.

No Cyborgs, just yet, my dear Elon. There is dancing to do....perhaps TO the stars, as well as with.....smile. Perhaps the ancestors will reach beyond watching over us, and "reach out and touch the face of God" - by means of the very technology with which we seek such an earnest connection, and which artists have dreamed of for centuries. Now THAT would be some Da Vinci code.

About Me

This author's book, "Rock Woman at Rest" is available at iuniverse.com, Sarnia, Ontario, "Cheeky Monkey Records", downtown Sarnia, and "The Stardust Lounge Bookstore", Sarnia, Ontario...and from the author, signed. "Poems from Butterscotch Cottage" available at iuniverse.com, "Cheeky Monkey Records", downtown Sarnia, and via the author, signed...
"Poems from Butterscotch Cottage" available through Xlibris.com bookstore, in person at "The Petrolia Bookstore", Petrolia, Ontario, "The Cheeky Monkey" records, downtown Sarnia, and from the author, signed with a personal message, if buying as a gift.
Both are available on loan from the Lambton County Library system, if you would like to read them for free, and can't afford your own copy.
Visit and sing along with her to "Throw Another Log on the Fire" at http://www.reverbnation.com/dawnmnevills#1
Original artwork for sale at http://www.ButterscotchCottage.vpweb.ca,
http://www.etsy.com/shop/DawnMNevills
or this website.
Contact:
DawnMNevills@butterscotchcottage.vpweb.ca
or
duty@brktel.on.ca
or
dawnmnevills@myspace.com
or
DawnMNevills@yahoo.com.ph